Of course we had a choice on the options but after we gave them the option we didn't have a choice it was all in the players hands
Which is why it's something valuable we can offer the player instead of more cash ffs. It's a thing that had value to the player that we were able to give him in exchange for something valuable to the club. Whatever that value is (essentially a discount), the media and fans will never know what it was, but the club and player/manager do. That value was taken by the club at the time of signing the contract. It's not in the news. Then the player has a valuable thing that they can exercise later, which did eventually end up in the news, years later. Can we take it as given that the PO benefits the player and it's not some sneaky gotcha that the club didn't anticipate. If it didn't benefit the player, the club would gain nothing from offering it during negotiations.
Yes they haven't won anything to show they deserve the have the PO take the money we are offering
It depends how much money other clubs were offering back then. To illustrate this, look at Drown's most recent decision with the Knights. He had his existing Eels PO on the table, that if activated, included a future PO. Instead he took a bigger money offer from the Knights because it was worth more to him than the existing contract with us, that included a further PO in the future.